In the final two weeks before Election Day, House Democrats’ largest super PAC is set to spend $4 million on television and digital advertisements in support of Sue Altman, the Democratic nominee in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District.
The last-minute investment by House Majority PAC, or HMP, is the first major investment by a national Democratic organ in Altman’s bid to unseat first-term Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R), the son of a popular former governor of the Garden State.
The group’s decision to jump in ― aided by a $500,000 contribution from the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s main teachers union ― speaks to Democrats’ confidence in their other candidates’ standing in neighboring New York, where many of the country’s most pivotal House races are.
“Sue Altman is proud of her pro-choice record, proud to stand with working families and proud to push back against the hate and harm of Project 2025,” Sean Spiller, president of the NJEA, said in a statement. “Her opponent is hiding from voters because he knows the Trump agenda is not what voters in CD7 want but he’s too scared to stand up for them. That’s why we are proud to partner with the House Majority PAC to help make sure CD7 elects Sue Altman.”
House Majority PAC is due to spend $2 million for each of the next two weeks with $1.8 million going toward television and $200,000 going toward digital advertising.
The group’s first 30-second spot focuses on evidence that Kean, who describes himself as “pro-choice,” cannot be trusted to protect abortion rights.
“Tom Kean Jr. has spent 23 years in Trenton and D.C. trying to strip away women’s rights,” the ad states. “Kean Jr. voted to punish doctors, refused to protect IVF fertility treatments. Now he’s supporting the extremists trying to ban abortion nationwide.”
The ad also references Kean’s vote for a Republican message bill that would criminalize doctors who don’t provide adequate medical care to a viable fetus born after an abortion or attempted abortion, his refusal to join a bipartisan attempt to put a bill to a vote codifying in vitro fertilization protections and his support for anti-abortion Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R) speakership bid.
The Altman campaign has also drawn attention to Kean’s use of a secret webpage in 2022 to present himself to abortion opponents as a “fierce defender of life, fighting every step of the way to protect the unborn from egregious abortion laws proposed in New Jersey.”
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House Democrats’ official campaign arm, contributed $200,000 to the New Jersey Democratic Party to fund a direct-mail program for Altman. The Working Families Party’s independent spending arms have also spent just under $500,000 on mail and digital ads supporting Altman.
But their investments were paltry compared to the nearly $3 million that the Congressional Leadership Fund, House Republicans’ main super PAC, has spent attacking Altman and bolstering Kean.
And prior to HMP’s investment, some progressives had questioned whether Altman, a former head of the Working Families Party’s New Jersey chapter, was being treated differently because of her roots on the left or bad blood with South Jersey’s Democratic political machine.
Altman, who has run as a mainstream reformer and put up accordingly impressive fundraising numbers, is competing for a seat that President Joe Biden carried by nearly 4 percentage points in 2020. HMP had already invested in a host of districts that Biden lost, such as Montana’s 1st Congressional District.
But someone familiar with national groups’ thinking said they had needed some time to see Altman’s momentum show up in polling and the security of knowing that the funds were not needed to shore up higher-priority candidates in neighboring states. While New Jersey’s 7th District is in the suburbs, it is still part of the prohibitively expensive New York City media market, making resource considerations a significant part of the equation, the person told HuffPost.
Last Wednesday, a Monmouth University poll came out showing Kean leading Altman 46% to 44% ― well within the margin of error. Those figures were consistent with a poll funded and commissioned by the DCCC that showed her trailing Kean 50% to 48%.
HuffPost asked Altman at an Oct. 13 event celebrating the Hindu holiday of Diwali whether she would like outside cavalry to come in for her.
“That’s not up to me, that’s up to them,” Altman said.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. The next three weeks are going to be very interesting,” she added. “But I know that no matter what, my allegiance, my loyalties, and my heart lie with NJ-07, and I will never forget where I come from.”
Jonathan Nicholson contributed reporting.